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June 14, 2012

The ruling
means that whoever emerges as the winner of the runoff will take power without
the check of a sitting Parliament and could even exercise some influence over
the election of a future Parliament. It vastly compounds the stakes in the
presidential race, raises questions about the governing military council’s
commitment to democracy, and makes uncertain the future of a constitutional
assembly recently formed by Parliament as well.

Protesters outside the Supreme Constitutional Court in Cairo on Thursday.

CAIRO —Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Courton Thursday ruled that the Islamist-led Parliament must be
immediately dissolved, while also blessing the right of Hosni Mubarak’s last
prime minister to run for president, escalating a battle for power between the
remnants of the toppled order and rising Islamists.

The high court, packed with sympathizers of the ousted
president, appeared to be engaged in a frontal legal assault on the Muslim
Brotherhood, the once-outlawed organization whose members swept to power in
Parliament this spring and whose candidate was the front-runner for the
presidency as well.

“Egypt just witnessed the smoothest military coup,” Hossam
Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights,said in a Twitter post.
“We’d be outraged if we weren’t so exhausted.”

The ruling means that whoever emerges as the winner of the
runoff will take power without the check of a sitting Parliament and could even
exercise some influence over the election of a future Parliament. It vastly
compounds the stakes in the presidential race, raises questions about the
governing military council’s commitment to democracy, and makes uncertain the
future of a constitutional assembly recently formed by Parliament as well.

The decision, which dissolves the first freely elected
Parliament in Egypt in decades, supercharges a building conflict between the
court, which is increasingly presenting itself as a check on Islamists’ power,
and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The ruling, by the highest judicial authority in Egypt, cannot be appealed and it was not clear how the military
council, which has been governing Egypt since Mr. Mubarak’s downfall in February 2011, would
respond. But in anticipation that the court’s ruling could anger citizens, the
military authorities reimposed martial law on Wednesday.

In the weeks before the first round of presidential voting,
Parliament had passed a law banningAhmed Shafik, who was Mr.
Mubarak’s last prime minister, and other top officials of the Mubarak
government from seeking the presidency. The law was previously set aside by a
panel of Mubarak-appointed judges and on Thursday was ruled unconstitutional by
the high court.

At the same time, however, the ruling raised new questions
about the presidential runoff itself. Although the court did not invalidate Mr.
Shafik’s candidacy, some argued Thursday that it may have raised new questions
about the candidacy of his opponent, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The ruling may have had the effect of invalidating Mr. Morsi’s nomination,
which relied on his party’s presence in Parliament.

The Egyptian state media reported that a senior member of
the court, Judge Maher Sami, said the ruling would require the immediate
breakup and re-election of the Brotherhood-led Parliament, and that the
application of the decision could also make it harder for the Brotherhood to
re-establish its current sizable plurality.

The ruling was immediately criticized by advocates for a
transition to democracy and civilian rule.

“From a democratic perspective, it is the worst possible
outcome imaginable,” said Shadi Hamid, research director of the BrookingsDohaCenter. “The democratically elected Parliament was the biggest
step in Egypt’s transition, and this casts the entire transition into
doubt. It is an anti-democratic decision.”

“This is an all-out power grab by the military,” he added.
“Egypt witnessed a coup today, I think it is fair to say.”

The question at issue in the high court’s decision was the
application of a rule setting aside two-thirds of the seats in Parliament for
selection by a system of party lists, also known as proportional
representation. The other third was reserved for individual candidates
competing in winner-take-all races.

Other authorities had decided before the parliamentary
election that parties could run their members under their banners as candidates
for the individual seats as well as the party list seats, but the court ruled
Thursday that the parties should not have been allowed to compete for those
seats, and so the results were invalid.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, as the
largest and strongest, stands to lose the most from the ruling. As many as 100
of its 235 seats in the 508-member assembly were elected as individual
candidates running under its banner. If it lost all of those seats, the
Brotherhood would still control the largest bloc in the chamber, and together
with the ultraconservative Salafi parties Islamists would still command a
majority. But the Brotherhood’s leadership of the chamber would be much less
decisive.

A senior Brotherhood official, speaking on the condition of
anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said leaders of the
Freedom and Justice Party were meeting to consider the party’s response. The
official said all possible responses included refusing to immediately dissolve
Parliament and rejecting the decision as legally baseless. He also said the
party was considering withdrawing Mr. Morsi from the presidential runoff, to
invalidate its legitimacy.It was also unclear whether the ruling might force
the dissolution of a recently formed 100-member panel picked by Parliament to
write a new constitution. Many of its members were chosen because of their
position as members of Parliament. The panel was selected only days ago after
tense negotiations between the Brotherhood and smaller liberal parties. With
Parliament dissolved, administrative courts might strike down the panel,
raising questions about how a new panel could be named.

Nor was it clear Thursday how the Muslim Brotherhood or the
leaders of the dissolved Parliament would respond to the decision.

The Brotherhood and others in Parliament had passed a law
banning top Mubarak government officials like Mr. Shafik from seeking the presidency
because they feared that such candidates could reactivate the powerful networks
of businessmen, former military officers and security officials who thrived
under Mr. Mubarak’s party, then push to replicate Mr. Mubarak’s style of
government as well. But election authorities set aside the law, pending review
by the constitutional court.

Mr. Shafik has indeed revived some of those old networks
among the old elite, campaigning as a strongman who can reimpose order on the
streets and stand as a bulwark to the Islamist Parliament. A former air force
general and then minister of aviation, he was long considered for at least a
decade an inside candidate to succeed Mr. Mubarak within his autocratic,
one-party system, and Mr. Shafik has made no secret of his admiration for his
former boss.

When r Mr. Shafik and Mr. Morsi advanced to the runoff
after the first round of voting — each with just under a quarter of the vote —
many Egyptians were shocked to find themselves with a choice between the two
polarizing throwbacks to the Mubarak era: the last chief of Mr. Mubarak’s
government and a conservative leader of the old Islamist opposition.

Many liberal activists and some Islamists began petitioning
the court to strike Mr. Shafik from the race in part to block his ascent. Some
hoped for a ruling that would require a do-over of the first round in the hope
that a less divisive or less conservative candidate might emerge. Many analysts
and political activists reasoned that the Mubarak-appointed court might seek to
block Mr. Shafik because a do-over that produced a less polarizing alternative
might present stiffer competition to Mr. Morsi.

The most likely outcome of the weekend’s runoff, if it
takes place, remains a subject of intense debate here, with no reliable polls
to shed light on the odds. If Mr. Shafik wins, he is likely to face immediate
doubts — whether justified or not — about the possibility that elements of the
old Mubarak government improperly assisted him to the victory. He also faces
pending corruption charges related to his role in the Mubarak government. But
by validating his candidacy, the court’s ruling has cleared away at least one
potential hurdle to his legitimacy.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.

This article has
been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction:
June 14, 2012

A previous
version of this article misstated the court’s decision regarding a law passed
by Parliament banning Ahmed Shafik from running for president. It was ruled
unconstitutional, not constitutional.